Web page designers pay a great deal of attention to the look-and-feel and user interaction with web pages. Graphical user interface elements such as text areas, images, tables, lists, radio buttons, carousels, etc., are considered deeply with respect to their placement, size, juxtaposition to other elements of the page, operation, and so on. Web designers consider the information to be presented (or collected) and then make a determination as to how to present (or collect) the information. For example, a web-based form or interview process might be advantageously presented to a user as a web page that includes a pop-up window from which the user can copy/paste as needed during the course of the interview. In other situations a web page and a modal might be preferred by the web designer, for example, when the modal is provided merely as an enlargement (e.g., of a thumbnail or small photo) or when the modal is informational so as to aid the user to select from a small set of choices (e.g., as in a radio button widget). In still other cases the web designer might choose to present two web pages (e.g., each with a scrollable region).
Unfortunately, there are situations where the web designer does not have access to enough dispositive information (e.g., user behaviors, flow or navigation paths, etc.) at the time the web interface is being developed. Indeed it can happen that the web designer cannot know in advance which of a variety of page/pop-up/modal combinations would be most advantageous for the user at the time that the user is interacting with the user interface (UI). To ameliorate this dearth of user interface design information, what is needed is a technique or techniques to adaptively layout or composite the web page or pages (or popup or modal) on the basis of information that is received or determined right at the time of rendering. The situation is exacerbated when multiple collaborators access the same web application. When two or more users interact with the same web application, they might want to see the same rendering of the same pages, regardless of their general preferences. In such a case, the determination of how to adaptively layout or composite the web page or pages (or popup or modal) should be consistent among the collaborating users. Unfortunately, legacy techniques fail to consider aspects of collaboration between multiple users. What is needed is a technique or techniques to improve over legacy approaches.